Raku ware

Forms, use and context#

The bowls are shaped by hand without a wheel, fired briefly one at a time, and drawn out of the kiln while hot. Black and red Raku are the classic types. In the narrow sense the name means the work of the Raku family line; today 'raku' is also used worldwide for a broader firing method.

Body#

Soft Kyoto clay, shaped by hand; the fired body is porous earthenware. Red Raku is linked to the colour of Juraku clay (聚樂土). Chōjirō's lion figure of 1574 uses an iron-rich reddish-brown body.¹¹⁴⁸

Glazes#

Methods#

1. Forming by hand (手捏ね tezukune) Shaped with the hands and a spatula, not thrown on a wheel; the Met's label and JAANUS both stress hand-building, and the 文化庁 record of the bowl 'Mukiguri' describes it as hand-built and thick-walled.^1011913
2. Kiln JAANUS describes a small single-chamber cylindrical updraft kiln with the bowl set in a saggar; the Met notes the small kiln could be used indoors, which suited Kyoto. A Yamaguchi tourism feature contrasts Raku, fired one bowl at a time with charcoal and bellows (鞴), with Hagi's climbing kiln.¹¹¹⁰¹⁴
3. Low-temperature firing and drawing out hot JAANUS gives a short firing at about 1,000 °C, after which the bowl is pulled out once the glaze has melted and cooled in the open air; it says the porous result holds heat and shields the hands. The 'Mukiguri' bowl still shows the mark of the iron tongs used to take it out of the kiln. Japanese Wikipedia gives a wider range of roughly 750–1,200 °C for the ware as a whole.¹¹⁹¹³
4. Continuity The Raku family states that its making and firing methods are those of about 450 years ago and are still used.⁷

With tea#

• The Raku Museum describes the Raku bowl as Rikyū's wabi-cha thinking expressed in a single bowl.³
• The Met describes Raku as highly esteemed in the tea ceremony and traces the family's lineage to Rikyū; legend has Chōjirō making bowls under Rikyū's guidance.¹⁰

Typical objects#

Tea bowlterm: water jar (水指 mizusashi)term: incense container (香合 kōgō)term: flower vase (花入 hanaire)

Reference objects#

Periods#

1. 1574Earliest dated work by Chōjirō: a two-colour lion figure with an incised inscription dated spring of Tenshō 2 (1574), now an Important Cultural Property held by the Raku Museum.⁸
2. c. 1579 – 1589The Raku Museum dates the first Raku tea bowls to about Tenshō 7 (1579); it gives Chōjirō's death as Tenshō 17 (1589), birth year unknown. It says Chōjirō is recorded as the son of a Chinese man named Ameya (阿米也), and that the roots of the technique lie in Ming three-colour (sancai) wares that Kyoto potters were already imitating.³
3. MomoyamaName: in Rikyū's day the bowls were called ima-yaki ('now ware'). The family lived near Hideyoshi's Jurakudai palace, where Rikyū also had a residence; the ware became Juraku-yaki and then Raku-yaki. Hideyoshi is said to have given the character 樂 as a seal, which became the family surname.⁵
4. Momoyama – 1980Successive heads (deceased generations only, as listed by the Raku Museum): 1 Chōjirō (d. 1589), 2 Jōkei (d. 1635), 3 Dōnyū (Nonkō, 1599–1656), 4 Ichinyū (1640–1696), 5 Sōnyū (1664–1716), 6 Sanyū (1685–1739), 7 Chōnyū (1714–1770), 8 Tokunyū (1745–1774), 9 Ryōnyū (1756–1834), 10 Tannyū (1795–1854), 11 Keinyū (1817–1902), 12 Kōnyū (1857–1932), 13 Seinyū (1887–1944), 14 Kakunyū (1918–1980). The museum also names Tanaka Sōkei in a 1576 record. Later generations are living and are not described here.⁶
5. c. 1615 – 1637Hon'ami Kōetsu (1558–1637) made tea bowls from about 1615 with help from Jōkei and Dōnyū; many of his black Raku bowls are said to have been fired in the Raku kiln.⁶
6. 1978 – presentThe 14th generation, Kakunyū, founded the Raku Museum in 1978 next to the family kiln and home; the collection (about 1,000 items per the 文化庁 listing, about 900 per the museum's own front page) centres on works of the successive generations and family documents.¹

Kiln sites#

Ambiguities#

• Chōjirō's dates differ: the Raku Museum gives birth year unknown and death in 1589; JAANUS gives 1516–92.⁶
• Chōjirō as tile-maker: JAANUS and the Met call him a roof-tile maker and repeat the popular story that Rikyū admired his tiles; the Raku Museum instead places him among Kyoto potters making sancai-style coloured wares. Both are reported, neither adopted.¹¹
• Firing temperature: JAANUS gives about 1,000 °C; Japanese Wikipedia about 1,000 °C for early black and about 800 °C for red, and 750–1,200 °C overall. Neither is a lab measurement.¹¹
• Name 'raku' outside Japan: Britannica describes raku chiefly as a firing method with removal from a hot kiln into open air and, in reduction firing, into combustible material. Post-firing reduction is a Western development and is not part of the Raku family description; keep the two senses apart.¹²
• The seal story: the Raku Museum says Hideyoshi 'is said to' have granted the 樂 seal and thinks the character was taken from Jurakudai; Japanese Wikipedia speaks of a silver seal. Treat as tradition.⁵
• Length of the tradition: the 文化庁 museum listing says both 'about 450 years' and '400-year tradition'.¹

Heritage listings#

Other recorded fields#

Other influences

• Relation: influenced Note: The Raku Museum traces Raku's technical roots to Ming three-colour lead-glazed wares (later called Kōchi / Jiaozhi ware 交趾焼), which Momoyama Kyoto potters imitated; the 1574 lion uses a southern sancai method. Name: chinese-southern-sancai⁴

Related#